This Saturday, I used to be a part of a Celebration of Life gathering held on the UCC Peace Church in Santa Cruz, California. There, we remembered the life and legacy of physicist and cosmologist Joel Primack.
He and his spouse, Nancy Abrams, co-authored two crucial books, The View From the Middle of the Universe and The New Universe and the Human Future: How a Shared Cosmology Might Remodel the World. It was an honor to have labored at instances with them over time.
Many stunning tales had been shared on the gathering, together with tales of how Joel and his spouse met and courted, and the way Joel had a photographic reminiscence, and the way, at six years previous, he found that one by no means must be bored if one learns “to note.” This perception got here to him when he was in a small grocery retailer in Butte, Montana, his hometown, and bored being there, however realized how attention-grabbing had been the buttons on his coat.
Former college students spoke—he oversaw 50 PhD scientific dissertations, and close to the top of his life, was nonetheless writing suggestions for his college students’ developments. I recall him lighting up with pleasure when he would speak about his college students and what nice contributions they had been making to science at the moment.
His main contribution to the subject of chilly darkish matter was defined by a girl professor who labored carefully with him for many years and co-authored a serious breakthrough article revealed in 1984 together with two different scientists. His assist of ladies scientists and college students was recalled, and his main function and braveness in co-founding the Union of Involved Scientists who resisted the Vietnam Warfare.* (He was conscious that, although he had tenure, he may have been fired for his vocal opposition to the warfare.) An advisor to presidents, he was modest and approachable on the identical time.
Right here and in tomorrow’s DM, I share my discuss from this special day.
In the present day, we keep in mind a terrific man and nice soul with a terrific calling, particularly to check the universe in all its splendor and majesty, awe, and marvel. Joel Primack was a mentor to many on this room who’re carrying on this wonderful work of studying in regards to the world, the universe, the cosmos we reside in that has birthed us all. What number of of you’d name Joel your “instructor” or your “mentor”?
And people of us who learn his books are his college students too.
My job and vocation is as a religious theologian, and I’m indebted to Joel and to Nancy, who collectively had been a “energy couple” in the perfect sense of that time period. Their e book on View from the Middle of the Universe is a traditional.
Once I consider the universe and urge others to take action, I’m reminded of three teachings from Thomas Aquinas, a Thirteenth-century saint and theologian who dared in his day to usher in the teachings of Aristotle, the best scientist of his period. He had three strikes towards him as a result of 1) he was a “pagan” and never a Biblical particular person; and a pair of) He got here to Europe by the use of Islam; and three) he was a scientist, and fundamentalists in Aquinas’s day,
as in ours, imagine they don’t have any want of science.
Aquinas stated, “Probably the most wonderful factor within the universe just isn’t the human. Probably the most wonderful factor within the universe is the universe itself, and all beings are right here to serve the universe.” Joel had essentially the most wonderful vocation: To review and train us of the truths and wonders of essentially the most wonderful factor within the universe. And essentially the most sacred factor within the universe.
To be continued.
*Kenneth Chang, “Joel Primack, Physicist Who Helped Clarify the Cosmos, Dies at 80” New York Instances, January 17, 2026
Banner Picture: Poster for Joel Primack memorial.
Queries for Contemplation
What follows from Aquinas’s instructing that “essentially the most wonderful factor within the universe just isn’t the human however the universe itself?” And that we’re all right here to serve the universe? How do you see humanity and your self serving the universe?
Associated Readings by Matthew Fox
Confessions: The Making of a Postdenominational Priest, pp. 384f
“Father Sky,” in The Hidden Spirituality of Males: Ten Metaphors To Awaken the Sacred Masculine, pp. 10-17, 29f
Naming the Unnameable: 89 Great and Helpful Names for God…Together with the Unnameable God
Sheer Pleasure: Conversations with Thomas Aquinas on Creation Spirituality
The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Knowledge for Exhausting Instances
Christian Mystics: 365 Readings & Meditations
